Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Sun, Sep 12, 2004 at 08:02:36PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> Old clause:
>
> Any lawsuit claiming patent infringement revokes your license.
>
> New clause:
>
> Any lawsuit claiming patent infringement revokes your license.
Incorrect; the new clause says "lawsuit claiming that this software
infringes a patent", which is completely different from the old
clause, "lawsuit claiming that the Licensor infringes a patent"
even patents unrelated to this work). Part (i) has been completely
dropped.
> Nothing's changed here.
Old clause:
"This License shall terminate automatically and You may no longer
exercise any of the rights granted to You by this License as of the date
You commence an action, including a cross-claim or counterclaim,
for patent infringement (i) against Licensor with respect to a patent
applicable to software or (ii) against any entity with respect to a
patent applicable to the Original Work [...]".
New clause:
"This License shall terminate automatically and You may no longer
exercise any of the rights granted to You by this License as of the date
You commence an action, including a cross-claim or counterclaim, against
Licensor or any licensee alleging that the Original Work infringes a
patent."
The new clause may still not satisfy everyone, but it's much better: it
no longer forbids all patent action against Licensor; in fact, it no
longer makes a special case of the Licensor at all.
I'm not sure that this clause necessarily passes the DFSG, but it's clear
that the OSI has made a good and, in my opinion, successful effort to clean
it up. It's neither fair nor correct to say that nothing has changed.
--
Glenn Maynard
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